


Into Ruin

by asroarke



Category: The Aurora Cycle - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, F/M, Immortality, Slow Burn, immortal!kaliis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26826949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asroarke/pseuds/asroarke
Summary: She’s dead.She’s also alive.It never ceases to amaze Kal how those two facts have always been true. Each time he has stood at her grave, he has known that somewhere else on this wretched planet she has been reborn. To a new family and a new life and not remembering him or what they were. But always as Aurora.Historical/Immortal AU where Aurora has been cursed to die over and over, and Kal won't rest until he frees her from it once and for all.
Relationships: Kaliis Gilwraeth/Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Into Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> so uh, I just binge read Aurora Rising and Aurora Burning two weeks ago and despite my best intentions I'm still obsessed with Kal and Aurora. I'm taking a stab at writing some fanfic of them but have no clue if there are even readers interested. idk and it hardly matters lol. 
> 
> anyway, here is a not at all canon fanfic starring my favorite syldrathi disaster as a brooding immortal type because why the heck not. it's 2020, the world is on fire, and i wanna spend it writing angst and having my faves smooch.

She’s dead.

She’s also alive. 

It never ceases to amaze Kal how those two facts have always been true. Each time he has stood at her grave, he has known that somewhere else on this wretched planet she has been reborn. To a new family and a new life and not remembering him or what they were. But always as Aurora. 

Tonight, he is visiting one of her graves. It lies just outside of Octavia, coincidentally just a stones throw from where they first met nearly a thousand years ago. Back then, he had thought it was fate that he found Aurora in the same place twice. Kal had been certain this meant the curse his father put upon her would finally come to an end. But Aurora died here a second time. 

The universe is cruel like that.

“Where are you, be’shmai?” he whispers.

It didn’t take much effort to find her the first time. In the years following her first and worst death, Kal wandered from town to town, drinking every kind of poison the world had to offer to numb his anger. One morning, he awoke to an inn he had no memory of coming to and a hangover almost as cruel as his father. Clutching his head, he climbed down the stairs to find Aurora, his Aurora, washing down the tables. 

“Did you rest well?” she had asked before her father— well, not her real father, just the father this cycle had given her —stepped in to inquire about how long Kal would be staying. And Kal just stood there, staring at the woman he loved more than life itself. The woman he would do anything to bring back.

He doesn’t like thinking about that cycle. It took him centuries to learn the rules of this curse, so he cringes at his earliest attempts to bring her back. That day, he told Aurora, who believed she had never met him before that day, that she was the love of his life and that his father killed her but they could be together again if she only remembered him. 

She thought he was mad. That only made him more desperate, and he scared her so badly that she ran from him. No one could find her. Three days later, hunters found her dead in the woods. The frost must have gotten her overnight. 

Kal knows how it works now. Each time Aurora’s heart stops beating, she is reborn somewhere else. She has no memory of her first life or of any of the others that followed, though there have been a few cycles where she started to remember. Things he would say gave her a sense of deja vu, and he’d see a small glimpse of one of his former Auroras. And she would sometimes have dreams — she thought they were dreams, at least — of the two of them kissing beneath the willow tree or of the mad man who confessed his love after never meeting her before or of the way he wept over her as the fever had been about to take her. Somewhere deep inside her mind, their love is still there. 

Kal crouches down in front of the crumbling stone. His fingers run over her name until the cold makes his fingertips numb. 

“Where are you?” he repeats. 

“Right behind you,” a cold, all too familiar voice says. “Or are you speaking to the dead girl you dare call _beloved_?”

Saedii is just as he remembers her despite it being a few decades since they last crossed paths. Her dark, black hair covered by the hood of her cloak, as black as the paint on her face and her dress. 

“Why did you call me here?” Kal asks, standing up as calmly as he can manage. But his body is rigid with the anger that only his family can bring to the surface.

Her head tilts ever so slightly as her purple eyes look him over. Saedii always scans him, looking for any change in him. The fashions change, but he never does and neither does she. His coat is a little longer and his trousers more narrow, but he is still Kaliis, still the brother Saedii has no idea what to do with. 

“To chat, I suppose,” she replies with a shrug.

“Here?” This is not the place to idly chat. Not when just turning his head to the right would allow him to see the exact spot where his father murdered Aurora all those centuries ago. No, this is the place to bring him for a fight, to get under his skin, to try and break him. 

“Kaliis,” Saedii sighs like he is annoying her. “I assure you. I did not ask to meet here just to upset you.” He glares. “Though I must admit, it’s an amusing side effect.”

“Saedii.”

Her long legs stride across the overgrown grass, coming to a stop behind Aurora’s grave marker. Her spiderlike fingers glide across the stone, and her lips purse. “She’s here, Kal.” Their eyes meet in the dark, and his heart thuds fast in his chest. “In the town.”

Three times. Aurora has lived here three times now. Maybe some part of her is being pulled back to this place, back to him. 

“Does he know?” Kal asks.

“If he does, I doubt he cares,” Saedii replies. “He has more pressing matters to deal with. You aren’t really a concern of his anymore.”

A weak Syldrathi prince living among mortals for hundreds of years is not exactly the kind of thing their father wants to let go of. But the mention of more pressing matters makes Kal wonder what is happening back home. The tired look in Saedii’s eyes tells him that he probably does not wish to know. 

His eyes dart to the town in the distance, and the lights seem brighter now that he knows Aurora is there. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“This is not a favor, dear brother,” Saedii snarls. Kal’s eyes return to his sister. “There is something I need in return.”

Kal stuffs his cold hands into the pockets of his coat and nods.

“In that town, there are two people of interest to us,” she says. “A brother and sister with the last name of Jones.”

“I don’t kill mortals,” he growls. 

“I never said they were mortals,” Saedii replies. 

No Syldrathi live among mortals. None except Kal. It’s a sin worth being killed over, unless one happens to be the son of the Syldrathi king, in which case he’s cursed instead. 

Jones is a mortal name. He’s met thousands of them already. These siblings can’t be anything special.

“What would you have me do?” he asks.

“Watch them,” she says. “The boy killed the Drakkon. He’s not one of us, but he is _something_. And I need to know more before I inform Father.”

Kal’s eyes catch on the light coming from the town. The beacon is calling him to Aurora. All he has to do is agree, despite his misgivings. 

“And if I find nothing?” he asks.

“Then, consider this a present. I do hope she lives long enough this time.”

Saedii does not wait for agreement. She’s gone before he even turns back to look at her. She’ll be back. Of that, he’s certain. His sister never asks him for anything, so he is certain this is important to her. And if he fails… well, Saedii knows exactly where Aurora is. She’d happily put an early end to her life if Kal refuses. 

The town glows brighter and brighter as he walks down the dirt road. 

_Kal_ , Aurora cried. _It will be okay._

His feet come to a stop. He stares up at the stars and curses them. 

_It will be okay_. That was the last thing she said to him before his father slit her throat. It hasn’t been okay. Nothing will be okay until he gets his Aurora back.

Which is why he must succeed this time. She will keeping dying until he does. 

“I’m coming, be’shmai,” he whispers to the stars. 


End file.
